C.E. Murphy's Blog, page 22

An Open Letter to the Irish Government

Feel free to share and/or use/amend it for your own purposes.

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To the Irish Government:

I have watched the ‘return to school’ plans develop over the past week with increasing horror and dismay and am now writing to ask you what the actual fuck the government thinks it’s doing.

The HSE’s guidelines indicate a 2-meter, masked distance between individuals is the minimum safe requirement, and that participants in indoors events are to be limited.

Evidence from the United States (see the Georgia ...

Kitsnacks: Pecan Pie (updated)

My husband is starting a new job on Tuesday (a promotion! Yay!), & upon hearing he was leaving, his coworkers offered the appropriate congratulations and speeches of woe, the latter of which included, “b..b..but…but…pecan pie…???”

So I’m making them a pecan pie, & have finally perfected my process for the recipe I invented several years ago. It is as follows, although it should be noted that I tend to make deep-dish pies, and for your average 9″ pie this should probably be cut in half. Or you...

Writing Career: Running the Numbers

I’ve had A Thought, and tweeted about it some, and now I’m going to discuss it with you!

My Thought was about how much transparency readers want. And…see, on one hand, writers feel like they’re talking about this stuff ALL THE TIME, and it’s information we all know, so it’s sort of hard to tell where the line between “I have told you this one thousand times and you are bored with it” and “this is completely new information to me!” lies. :)

And then the other reason we’re never sure how much we s...

Picoreview Round-Up

A series of picoreviews for things I’ve watched on streaming lately:

The Old Guard: Loved it. Want more. Fave bit: not the Romantic Speech scene, but its aftermath when it cuts back to them. Although the speech itself, and those characters, are wonderful. Solid movie, will watch again v. soon.

Warrior Nun: The pacing of the first 3-4 episodes is *terrible*. I feel as if they expected 6 episodes & got 10 and had to Fill The Time. But it evened out, and by the end I definitely wanted more.

My Spy:...

a COMPLAINT

all right FINE after attempting EVERY POSSIBLE LEGAL METHOD & (let’s be honest) a couple of quasi-legal methods of streaming Leverage, i have BOUGHT NOT ONLY THE DVDS BUT ALSO A PORTABLE DVD/BLU-RAY PLAYER SO I CAN WATCH IT WHILE USING THE EXERCISE CYCLE, GOD DAMN IT

i feel that this is SOMEWHAT OVER THE TOP and should not have been A NECESSARY STEP for watching 12 YEAR OLD TV in THIS THE YEAR OF OUR LORD TWO THOUSAND TWENTY

i also bought The Librarians and Alias for good measure because IN FOR ...

Fic: Walker Papers/Supernatural ‘thank you’ story

I’ve written a little Walker Papers/Supernatural crossover fic story for you, my readers, basically because you’re wonderful.

There are EPUB and MOBI versions of “Ghost Rider” available for download at my Patreon, or you can read it on mizkit.com. :)

It’s one thing for freshly-minted shaman Joanne Walker’s past to come back to haunt her…but when it comes back with a vendetta aimed at her beloved 1969 Mustang, Petite, all bets are off. But with the help of a couple of really tall, really cute FB...

Release Day: GLADIATOR CHEETAH

The second book in my ridiculous gladiator shapeshifter paranormal romance series is out today! GLADIATOR CHEETAH link, for those of you who are all business! (Book one, GLADIATOR BEAR, is here. :))

For those who have read the book early: if you wanted to leave a review, that would be AMAZING. Generally, Amazon needs 50 reviews to start boosting books, & every 50 thereafter increases its visibility that much more.

He’ll make her heart race….

Shannon had her life planned out right up to the Olymp...

Picoreview: Season 10 Supernatural

Picoreview: Season 10 Supernatural: Honestly, I suspect I enjoyed this a great deal more after a 6 year hiatus than I would have if Id continued watching it at the time. Im watching the THEN/NOW recaps because its been years, and theyre generally helpful, and I spent all of April doing a more or less daily picoreview of the episode I watched on Twitter, so Im just gonna drop that behind the cut for the hell of it. :)

April 7: Day 2, #SupernaturalFitnessRegime, s10e2: Jensen Ackles is more...

Supernatural Fitness Regime

Ive sort of started getting into a schedule. Most of March was a complete wash, to exactly nobodys surprise, but Ive been working on a book since the end of March, and early in April I started (*shudder*) exercising. Weve got an exercise bike in the shed, and

see, so, like, 6 years ago Id given up on Supernatural, but then I was CONVINCED it was gonna wrap up with season 10 and I wanted to watch the end of the series with everybody else, right? So I started catching up, but just as I finished...

Kitsnacks: Chili

Ive been mucking about with chili recipes for ages trying to come up with one that I particularly liked, and I think Ive finally nailed it.

Caties Chili
2-3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 onion
2 bell peppers
4 cloves garlic, smashed
2 tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 cans diced tomatoes
1 heaping tbsp tomato paste
1 c vegetable stock
2 cans kidney beans, rinsed
1 c frozen corn
1 lb (500gm) stew meat, if desired

Heat the oil a bit while you...